Monday, February 8, 2010

BMW Logo in Fondant

This will be the topper for my brother-in-law's graduation cake. He's been accepted into BMW's training program.

Stats:

Satin Ice black fondant circle (about 6" in diameter)

MMF blue, white, and gray accents

Gray ring is extruded MMF painted with silver luster dust

the rest of the MMF was brushed with canola oil for shine

This was actually a good learning experience. I finally used the extruder for a finished product. I finally used luster dust. I finally used canola oil to make fondant shiny.

First I rolled out my black fondant. Using my 6" round pan, I cut out a circle. Next I mixed black with white fondant to get a nice light gray. After kneading it with some shortening, I stuffed it into my extruder. It wasn't as smooth as I would have liked. I'm inclined to think that a different type of fondant would work better. I should run pure Satin Ice through it to verify that theory.

The gray tub was attached to the black circle with a little water. The water picked up some of the black coloring so I was careful not to roll the gray around in it.

I rolled out some blue and white MMF. Using a tumbler drinking glass, I cut out a circle from each, about 4" in diameter. The circles were quartered. After matching up the blue and the white sections, I could see my quartering wasn't very good. I had to smoosh and trim the sections together to make a better whole circle. The circle was then glued to the black with some more water.

I sprayed some PAM into a bowl. Using a small paintbrush, I gently brushed some of the canola oil on to the fondant. This eliminated the lingering cornstarch and made the fondant smooth and shiny. The bulk of the shine wore off after a while, but it still looks nice.

WARNING. Luster dust containers are hard to open. My luster dust jar now has teeth, knife, and nail marks along the edges. It's an extremely tight fitting cap that has an inner as well as an outer rim to it. It took about 5 minutes to open without me stabbing myself. I jammed a butter knife into it and eventually pried it open.

I gingerly poured a bit of dust into a disposable souffle cup. After adding some confectioner's glaze, I was convinced this was what pixies drink at weddings. It was sparkle magic. It looked just like metallic paint. The gray fondant tube got a couple coats of this stuff ... it shimmered as I painted it on, dust settling into place ... it was a thing of beauty.

After some consideration, I decided to cut the BMW letters and instead pipe "Congrats, Chris!" I'll do that once I assemble the entire cake. Right now my circle is drying on the kitchen table. Hopefully I won't screw it up in the end.

UPDATE (02/09/2010)

The shine has worn off the fondant, but it still looks fine. I rolled out some more of the gray MMF and used my alphabet cutters to spell "Congrats Chris!". I actually cut out "Congratulations Christopher!", but that was impossible to fit it on the logo. Luckily I saved the left over luster dust paint, so I was able to put a nice coat on the letters too. I'm very pleased on how this came out. Tomorrow I'll level, torte, fill, and ice the cake.